It’s the little things, at first. How, when it came time to buy the fluid for the transfer case, Grainger politely said the brand I preferred couldn’t be shipped to California. Or, once I’d found a substitute, drained all the old blood into a bucket, then carefully poured it back into the empty containers, the local parts store told me they couldn’t take all the fluid for recycling at once. I’d have to come back tomorrow with the rest, and oh, we can’t accept the empty containers, either.

We left the coast two weeks ago and pointed ourselves inland, towards Ashland, Oregon. I spent a late summer night there once, years ago. Stopped in at the end of a blissful day of riding. The best day, maybe, chasing two good friends through the tangle of the Klamath National Forest, our flawed but brilliant motorcycles humming their way up that ancient river valley, chasing the green and dashing water north, ever north.

We’re into our ninth month. Two hundred and forty long days of wandering. Thirty-five states and some 22,000 miles. Everything shows the sign of it. It’s more than the tower of digits on the odometer, more than the hour on my watch. It’s leaking power steering lines and flagging air conditioning. It’s new rust, dents, and scrapes. Scratches, chips in our windshield. It’s our clothing, faded or failing at the abuse of a truncated rotation and the harshness of laundromat machines. It's the fatigue of so many fitful nights.

We missed the tourist season but we went anyhow, despite the graying skies and the low sun. Despite the fallen leaves and cold nights. We pointed ourselves north and gunned straight for the Canadian border, toward Glacier National Park. Everyone who’s been uses the same sparkling vocabulary: Gorgeous. Beautiful. Stunning. It’s the kind of consensus that leaves me wary, and when we roll through the gates, I half expect to find Glacier's thin thread of natural wonder buried under a blanket of humanity. Some version of the Great Smoky Mountains, or another Acadia.

he specter of typhoon Songda ran us out of Seattle. The weather map showed a brawling thing, spinning mad off the coast, the size of two wide western states. Broad green arms of rain and wind spiraled out from the center, promising to slam the whole of the Pacific Northwest with wall after wall of wind and rain. A sustained 50 mph gale, the news said. Gusts of 75 mph, or more. A storm larger than the largest that’s ever hit the city.

We’d tumbled into Seattle a week prior. Caught the first snow on the North Cascades Highway on our way there, the gorgeous mountain views obscured first by brooding rain clouds, then by sleet, then by the kind of heavy, wet snow that clumps on conifer limbs and coats the road with dull slush. And when we’d braved the passes, the truck sure-footed and steady, we chased the waterfalls out of the hills and to their rivers.

We stopped the leak. Spent a few days letting the camper dry out, then begged some shop space from Amos Callenberger and the rest of the good guys at Vankind, in Wilson, Wyoming. The company’s just now getting its feet under it converting Sprinter, Promaster, and Transit vans into livable, workable spaces. National Geographic photographers and North Face executives count themselves among the company’s clients. They’ve got some experience putting holes in sheet metal, and keeping water out of places it doesn’t belong.

There’s no mistaking the sound of air escaping. That sharp hiss, the harbinger of a thousand headaches. Beth has her window down, snapping photos as we wind our way up Spirit Mountain, the rocky switchback barely a mile from downtown Cody, Wyoming. The truck rocks and sways as it lumbers up in low range, slow but drama-free. Brandon and Leigh rocket ahead in their Westy, making up what they lack in driven wheels with careful momentum. Then the noise comes. An air line, most likely. One that runs to the onboard tank, or one of the two suspension air bags over the rear axle.

Twenty years ago, Higgins Lake was humming with talk of zebra mussels. Nearby Houghton already had the little invaders with razorback shells, and it was only a matter of time before the menace made its way north, hitching a ride on the belly of a boat. There were signs. Public notices and drawings of diligent defenders of the lake hosing off their vessels before and after each launch.

It’s strange, what I miss. Our kitchen, sometimes. The acres of cherry butcher block counter space and a refrigerator indulgent enough for a full gallon of milk. A sink so big it seemed made for bathing. More than nine square feet of floor space. Motorcycles, certainly, but the garage, less than I would have thought. Mowing the lawn, not at all. Sunday mornings, definitely.

Someone told me there were trains up here. Massive steam locomotives from the days when men couldn’t pull timber from these forests fast enough. They’d been parked decades ago, left to rust into the earth they’d been built to conquer, their rails bent and ties rotten. I’d seen photos of the things, their flanks flaking in the mottled forest sun, red and orange and brown. Unnatural against the living green all around them.